poppedmusic

Honeyblood

Liverpool O2 Academy 2, 18th November 2016

Words: Gary Lambert

Photos: Gaz Jones

To celebrate the release of their
sophomore album Babes Never Die, Honeyblood embarked on their largest ever tour of the UK. Their visit to Liverpool coincided with a gig with Crystal Fighters which made the O2 Academy Liverpool pretty much the centre of the universe for the night with both floors packed out.

As well as the fantastic PINS (who Popped Music were fortunately enough to see at this venue earlier in the year), support came from local prospects Trudy and The Romance. Now I have mentioned several times before that for whatever reason Trudy and The Romance leave me feeling a bit flat and disappointed, yet they do not seem to have that effect on anybody else. It is a prime example of musical taste just not fitting.

It is not even a personal thing as I’ve met the band and they’re bloody nice people. Even a cover of Billy Fury doesn’t take me closer to swoon, but I infinitely support this cover more than their version of Come Together by The Beatles. Not that they covered it badly in the past, it’s just more a case of no matter what you do, it’s not going to be better. Trudy and The Romance have texture and depth to their music, and are an enjoyable live act. They just need a different reviewer. We are like drummers, easily replaceable.

Honeyblood are in the process of blossoming into a high quality duo make no mistake, and this latest tour is just the next step in the story. Sometimes I feel that when you have a guitar and drums duo, it feels like the challenge for them is purely to appear as loud as possible. In our interview with Honeyblood they discussed the difficulty of creating a live sound that does not seek to replicate the layers upon layers approach of recording an album, but instead finds a way to make the songs work using the resources they have. In fact, after recording the album, Cat and Stina took themselves away for two weeks to try to play it live and work out how it would need to go to become a live piece. It was definitely mission accomplished as they sounded bold and exciting throughout their set. Album highlight Justine, Misery Queen sounded absolutely astonishing live and had me sucked into a reverie during it. I am often a misery king when watching bands as I try to approach them with analytical detachment, but by the end of the night I was standing on the benches at the back of the venue dancing and getting my eye level above the waving arms of the ground.

Stina and Cat are no misery queens, but they are the regal sounding Honeyblood.